Reflection in Action: A Guidebook for Student Affairs Professionals and Teaching Faculty

This guidebook aims to stimulate student affairs professionals and higher education faculty alike to adopt new approaches when discussing sensitive or controversial topics with their students. It provides teachers and professionals with a critical social understanding of social justice, social agency, reflection, and actionable knowledge to develop new and effective skills, practice them in safe spaces, and apply them in the field. It offers tools that are equally applicable in a classroom or cocurricular setting.

The exceptional teachers, scholars, and professionals contributing to this volume provide a diverse and alternative lens through which to examine the intersection of social justice education and professional practice. The text is organized in three overarching themes: Part One, “Existing Theories, Examining Claims, and Proposing New Understandings”; Part Two, “Concrete Tools and Safe Spaces for Practicing Difficult Dialogues in Professional Practice”; and Part Three, “Professional Development, Action Research, and Social Agency.” In Part Four, “Moving Forward,” the book concludes with a chapter on implications for daily life and practice.

The action-oriented research model provides strategies and frameworks for using social science research to engage in critical social and educational problem solving. The emphasis is on moving colleges and universities to widen their moral and ethical lenses, beyond understanding diversity, to developing multicultural competence and enriching their campus communities.

Written for faculty in higher education and student affairs professionals, along with master’s and doctoral students in these fields, this book provides a framework that is grounded in research and sound pedagogies and theories.

Kimberly A. Kline is Associate Professor, Student Personnel Administration, Buffalo State College.

Edward P. St. John is Algo D. Henderson Collegiate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. He is interested in education, justice, and public policy. He serves as series editor for Readings on Equal Education and has received awards for his leadership from the Association for the Study of Higher Education and for scholarship from the National Association of Student Financial Aid.